Fight Like Hell: The Untold History of American Labor Highlight

During the 1930s, hundreds of Mohawk workers and their families took advantage of that ruling and moved south, building up a community around the Ironworkers Local 361 union hall on Atlantic Avenue in New York. They created a little slice of home the locals called “Downtown Kahnawake” that lasted until the early 1960s. As New York City’s building boom cooled down and the completion of the New York State Thruway slashed the commute between downtown Brooklyn and upstate New York, the skywalkers began to “boom out” in search of work elsewhere. The tradition persists, as Mohawk ironworkers continue traveling from work site to work site, walking iron and making superhuman feats of strength and agility look easy. In 2002, New York City paid its respects to those workers and their elders with an exhibit at the National Museum of the American Indian’s George Gustav Heye Center called “Booming Out: Mohawk Ironworkers Build New York.”